Letter: Global Hyperbolicity of Sliced Spaces

We show that for generic sliced spacetimes global hyperbolicity is equivalent to space completeness under the assumption that the lapse, shift and spatial metric are uniformly bounded. This leads us to the conclusion that simple sliced spaces are timelike and null geodesically complete if and only if space is a complete Riemannian manifold.     

Universal WCG banach spaces and universal Eberlein Compacts

We prove that for cardinalsτ satisfying τ^ω=τ and forτ=ω ₁, there do not exist universal Eberlein Compacts of weightτ, or universal WCG spaces of density characterτ. Ifτ is a strong limit cardinal of countable cofinality such universal spaces do exist. Thus under GCH universal spaces exist forτ iff cof(τ)=ω. The research of the second author was supported by a grant from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation and the Fund for the Promotion of Research at the Technion.     

Synthesis,spectroscopy and thermal properties of the nickel(II), palladium(II) and copper(II) complexes of bis(aminoalkyl)-oxamides (=LH2) including the crystal structure of Cu2L(NO3)2

Summary The synthesis of the Ni^II, Pd^II and Cu^II complexes of N, N-bis(aminoalkyl)oxamides (LH₂) is described and structures are proposed on the basis of their physical and spectroscopic properties. With Ni^II and Pd^II only one complex is formed with general formula NiL or PdL, characterised by coordination through two deprotonated amide N-atoms and two terminal NH₂ groups. With Cu^II it proved possible to obtain three structurally different compounds, depending on the pH, with general formulae Cu(LH₂)X₂, Cu₂(L)X₂ and CuL in which X=Cl, Br or NO₃. The structure of [Cu₂(C₈O₂N₄H₁₆](NO₃)₂ was solved by means ofx-ray diffraction; Mr=451.33, monoclinic, space group P2₁/n, a=9.503(4), b=7.614(1), c=10.407(3) Å, =98.43(3)°, V=744.3(7)ų, Z=2, Dx=1.202 g cm^–3, =1.33 cm^–1, (MoK)=0.71073 Å, F(000)=520, room temperature, R=0.043, wR=0.047 for 1080 observed [I>-3(I)] not systematically absent reflections out of 1423 measurements and 137 variables. The compound has a conformational chair/boat disorder with 82% in the more stable chair form.     

Novel approach to the zaragozic acids. Enantioselective total synthesis of 6,7-dideoxysqualestatin H5

The total synthesis of 6,7-dideoxysqualestatin H5 (3) has been completed by a concise approach that features the stereoselective intramolecular vinylogous aldol reaction of the furoic ester 25a to give 30 or its trimethylsilyl ether derivative 34, which possess the requisite absolute stereochemistry at C(3)-C(5) of 3. Compound 34 was reduced to the saturated bislactone 39, and the C(1) side chain subunit 47 was introduced leading to a mixture of the hemiacetals 48 and the corresponding ketone 49. When this mixture was stirred with methanolic acid, transketalization occurred to give a mixture of 50 and the spirocyclic methyl acetals 51a,b. Oxidation of the primary alcohol group in 50 followed by saponification of the two remaining ester groups gave 3. The longest linear sequence in the synthesis commences with commercially available erythronolactone (26) and requires 17 chemical steps with only 10 isolated intermediates.     

Bipolar Mass Spectrometry of Labile Coordination Complexes, Redox Active Inorganic Compounds, and Proteins Using a Glass Nebulizer for Sonic-Spray Ionization

In this study, we report on the development of a novel nebulizer configuration for sonic-spray ionization (SSI) mass spectrometry (MS), more specifically for a version of SSI that is referred to as Venturi easy ambient sonic-spray ionization (V-EASI) MS. The developed nebulizer configuration is based on a commercially available pneumatic glass nebulizer that has been used extensively for aerosol formation in atomic spectrometry. In the present study, the nebulizer was modified in order to achieve efficient V-EASI-MS operation. Upon evaluating this system, it has been demonstrated that V-EASI-MS offers some distinct advantages for the analysis of coordination compounds and redox active inorganic compounds over the predominantly used electrospray ionization (ESI) technique. Such advantages, for this type of compounds, are demonstrated here for the first time. More specifically, a series of labile heptanuclear heterometallic [Cu^II ₆Ln^III] clusters held together with artificial amino acid ligands, in addition to easily oxidized inorganic oxyanions of selenium and arsenic, were analyzed. The observed advantages pertain to V-EASI appearing to be a “milder” ionization source than ESI, not requiring electrical potentials for gas phase ion formation, thus eliminating the possibility of unwanted redox transformations, allowing for the “simultaneous” detection of negative and positive ions (bipolar analysis) without the need to change source ionization conditions, and also not requiring the use of syringes and delivery pumps. Because of such features, especially because of the absence of ionization potentials, EASI can be operated with minimal requirements for source parameter optimization. We observed that source temperature and accelerating voltage do not seem to affect labile compounds to the extent they do in ESI-MS. In addition, bipolar analysis of proteins was demonstrated here by acquiring both positive and negative ion mass spectra from the same protein solutions, without the need to independently adjust solution and source conditions in each mode. Finally, the simple and efficient operation of a dual-nebulizer configuration was demonstrated for V-EASI-MS for the first time.

Hybrid artificial neural networks for efficient valuation of real options and financial derivatives

A hybrid valuation methodology is proposed and tested for improving the efficiency of contingent claims pricing by combining Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and conventional parametric option pricing techniques. With one application on financial derivatives and one on real options the methods superiority is demonstrated. The resulting efficiency is instrumental for real time applications.MSC code: 90-08 Acknowledgements: Both authors are thankful for partial financial support to the HERMES European Center of Excellence on Computational Finance and Economics of the University of Cyprus and a University of Cyprus grant for research in ANNs and Derivatives, and to the anonymous referees for their helpful comments and discussions.     

Application of selected reaction monitoring tandem mass spectrometry to the quantitative determination of an arsenic-containing nucleoside in a crude biological extract

HPLC electrospray selected reaction monitoring tandem mass spectrometry was used for the determination of a key arsenic metabolite, 5'-dimethylarsinoyladenosine, at trace levels (ca. 20 microg As l(-1)) in a crude extract of kidney from the clam Tridacna derasa.     

A universal property of reflexive hereditarily indecomposable Banach spaces

It is shown that every separable Banach space universal for the class of reflexive Hereditarily Indecomposable space contains isomorphically and hence it is universal for all separable spaces. This result shows the large variety of reflexive H.I. spaces.

     

Quantitative combination of volumetric MR imaging and MR spectroscopy data for the discrimination of meningiomas from metastatic brain tumors by means of pattern recognition

The analysis of information derived from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and spectroscopy (MRS) has been identified as an important indicator for discriminating among different brain pathologies. The purpose of this study was to investigate the efficiency of the combination of textural MRI features and MRS metabolite ratios by means of a pattern recognition system in the task of discriminating between meningiomas and metastatic brain tumors. The data set consisted of 40 brain MR image series and their corresponding spectral data obtained from patients with verified tumors. The pattern recognition system was designed employing the support vector machines classifier with radial basis function kernel; the system was evaluated using an external cross validation process to render results indicative of the generalization performance to “unknown” cases. The combination of MR textural and spectroscopic features resulted in 92.15% overall accuracy in discriminating meningiomas from metastatic brain tumors. The fusion of the information derived from MRI and MRS data might be helpful in providing clinicians a useful second opinion tool for accurate characterization of brain tumors.